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Topic: Damn, Richard! (Read 10641 times)

I did find one famous Richard Alpert but he is more current than I would have expected and it's a stretch:

Richard Alpert (born April 6, 1931), also known as Baba Ram Dass, is a contemporary spiritual teacher who wrote the 1971 bestseller Remember Be Here Now. He is well known for his personal and professional association with Timothy Leary at Harvard University in the early 1960s. He is also known for his travels to India and his relationship with the Hindu guru Neem Karoli Baba.

yeah, we know he really was a slave and he really was on the shipthe thing we're responding to and wondering is if Richard was born in the 1800's or 1000's of years earlier

he could be egyptian from the time of the pyramids and have been given immortality from Jacob, then MIB played a cruel joke and somehow orchestrated Richard's capture and selling into slavery the joke being, "yeah, you're immortal, but you're going to spend it all as a slave"

Right, I understand what you're saying, and on a certain level, I would agree with that, if this weren't the last season. What I'm saying is that line of thinking is all wrong. Do you think that this late into the game they are going to try and put on this extra layer of detail about him being an ancient egyptian from thousands of years BEFORE The Black Rock?? We don't even have the complete story about what happened with The Black Rock yet, and it's the last season. I think it is far more sensible to assume that Richard was just a slave or prisoner on The Black Rock, and Jacob rescued him, then gave him this gift.

I know you are kind of hung up on Richard's appearance, and even I totally understand that, but I posted this in another thread in an attempt to understand how they could explain Richard's unique look...

I'm deffinitely thinking he was a slave. I originally thought he was like a crewman or something, but I knew he arrived on that boat.

Where do you think he was a slave from? I was talking about this the other day, and I couldn't come up with anything that made sense.

Okay, so, after doing some super quick research, this is what I came up with. Partial facts, partial wiki, partial opinion...And heeeeeeeere we go.

Well, Richard Alpert is played by Nestor Carbonell who is born of Cuban and Catalan (Spaniard) descent (courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestor_Carbonell). And since the LOST writers are usually pretty good at keeping that kind of stuff in check, I'm assuming that they will use some kind of historical accuracy when explaining his origin. So how does that help us?? Well, according to the power of the wiki...

"Slavery in North Africa...between the 16th and 19th centuries...The coastal villages and towns of Italy, Portugal, Spain and Mediterranean islands were frequently attacked by them [Barbary pirates]"

Since the Black Rock set sail on March 22nd, 1845, that falls into the time period of "between the 16th and 19th centuries" Now Barbary pirates obviously weren't on a ship coming out of Portsmouth, but maybe, juuuuuuuust maybe, this ship decided for some reason to take on some unpaid help in order to do the mining. I'm not sure how you would sail in order to get to Siam (Thailand) from England, but it seems reasonable to think that you would pass by Spain. Now, if you're wiliing to take that journey with me, then this shouldn't be too hard to also swallow, but what if the sailors on the black rock decided to take advantage of the Burbary pirates viciousness, and just swooped in and took a bunch of people with them.

Now, this might be a stretch, and I'm not even sure where a person with Catalan descent would come from in Spain (North, south, East, West???), but since slaves were taken from Spain, this would make the most sense to me. I'm not in love with this idea, but like I said, it does make sense...kinda.

Now, like I said, I am completely aware that I might be wrong, and despite the direct kind of phrasing I use here, I am not trying to implicate that you are wrong, I guess I am just throwing out the idea that we have been overlooking the really obvious explanations for the past 6 years, and now is when we NEED to accept what they are telling us.

I did find one famous Richard Alpert but he is more current than I would have expected and it's a stretch:

Richard Alpert (born April 6, 1931), also known as Baba Ram Dass, is a contemporary spiritual teacher who wrote the 1971 bestseller Remember Be Here Now. He is well known for his personal and professional association with Timothy Leary at Harvard University in the early 1960s. He is also known for his travels to India and his relationship with the Hindu guru Neem Karoli Baba.

source:Wikipedia

That might be why the writers chose the name, but since the Black Rock was back from 1845, LOST's Richard Alpert probably doesn't have a connection to a person who wasn't born yet. LOL

I was really dissapointed to hear that Richard doesn't have any more of a clue as to what's going on than the losties. Yes, I believe he still has a ton of knowledge about the island to share but as far as the true meaning behind all of what Jacob and MIB do, he has no clue- that suxs!

yeah, we know he really was a slave and he really was on the shipthe thing we're responding to and wondering is if Richard was born in the 1800's or 1000's of years earlier

he could be egyptian from the time of the pyramids and have been given immortality from Jacob, then MIB played a cruel joke and somehow orchestrated Richard's capture and selling into slavery the joke being, "yeah, you're immortal, but you're going to spend it all as a slave"

Right, I understand what you're saying, and on a certain level, I would agree with that, if this weren't the last season. What I'm saying is that line of thinking is all wrong. Do you think that this late into the game they are going to try and put on this extra layer of detail about him being an ancient egyptian from thousands of years BEFORE The Black Rock?? We don't even have the complete story about what happened with The Black Rock yet, and it's the last season. I think it is far more sensible to assume that Richard was just a slave or prisoner on The Black Rock, and Jacob rescued him, then gave him this gift.

I'd be satisfied with that explanation of his backstory, hell that would make him old enough to impress me. But, without discussing spoilers here, I was under the impression we were going to get his back story in a later episode. Now I'm wondering if even the spoilers are being fed to us because I was honestly and pleasantly surprised last night.

I'd be satisfied with that explanation of his backstory, hell that would make him old enough to impress me. But, without discussing spoilers here, I was under the impression we were going to get his back story in a later episode. Now I'm wondering if even the spoilers are being fed to us because I was honestly and pleasantly surprised last night.

Well, this is not a spoiler, so don't worry about that, but the episode Ab Aeterno (sp??) is suppossed to be a Richard episode, and to answer your question, there is deffinitely enough we DON'T know about him that could fill an episode, so I'm sure we won't be disappointed.

Now, to address your post, and I'm not trying to sound condescending, but really, you didn't see what happened with him coming from a mile away last night??

I'd be satisfied with that explanation of his backstory, hell that would make him old enough to impress me. But, without discussing spoilers here, I was under the impression we were going to get his back story in a later episode. Now I'm wondering if even the spoilers are being fed to us because I was honestly and pleasantly surprised last night.

Well, this is not a spoiler, so don't worry about that, but the episode Ab Aeterno (sp??) is suppossed to be a Richard episode, and to answer your question, there is deffinitely enough we DON'T know about him that could fill an episode, so I'm sure we won't be disappointed.

Now, to address your post, and I'm not trying to sound condescending, but really, you didn't see what happened with him coming from a mile away last night??

Honestly, no, I've been under the assumption that he'd be laying low until 3/23, Ab Aeterno. I really didn't expect to see him play that big of a role until then. I thought he might pop in a time or two like he did with Sawyer (and then scamper away again until his cue), so i was taken off guard last night which was a nice change.

Haunting to see Richard on the Black Rock. He goes straight to what I'm assuming were HIS set of manacles. Ericd posted a great cap in the screen grabs thread, and it shows several scratches on the wood. Like Richard was keeping track of the weeks or months. I found it interesting that he went specifically to the Black Rock to try and die, like he feels he should have died there long ago. He could have just asked one of them to shoot him (lots less dramatic!) but it just feels right for him to want to die in the vessel that brought him to the island. Nice closure. Well, he had the IDEA of closure...

I'd be satisfied with that explanation of his backstory, hell that would make him old enough to impress me. But, without discussing spoilers here, I was under the impression we were going to get his back story in a later episode. Now I'm wondering if even the spoilers are being fed to us because I was honestly and pleasantly surprised last night.

Well, this is not a spoiler, so don't worry about that, but the episode Ab Aeterno (sp??) is suppossed to be a Richard episode, and to answer your question, there is deffinitely enough we DON'T know about him that could fill an episode, so I'm sure we won't be disappointed.

Now, to address your post, and I'm not trying to sound condescending, but really, you didn't see what happened with him coming from a mile away last night??

Honestly, no, I've been under the assumption that he'd be laying low until 3/23, Ab Aeterno. I really didn't expect to see him play that big of a role until then. I thought he might pop in a time or two like he did with Sawyer (and then scamper away again until his cue), so i was taken off guard last night which was a nice change.

Oh, okay, nevermind, I misunderstood what you meant. But yeah, I was actually surprised myself to see him be in it for more than 20 seconds as well.

Haunting to see Richard on the Black Rock. He goes straight to what I'm assuming were HIS set of manacles. Ericd posted a great cap in the screen grabs thread, and it shows several scratches on the wood. Like Richard was keeping track of the weeks or months. I found it interesting that he went specifically to the Black Rock to try and die, like he feels he should have died there long ago. He could have just asked one of them to shoot him (lots less dramatic!) but it just feels right for him to want to die in the vessel that brought him to the island. Nice closure. Well, he had the IDEA of closure...

You know what I found real interesting about that part?? When Jack says something like, "He wants to die, there really isn't anything we can do to stop him." I started laughing, because yeah, there was something they could have done to stop him...NOT KILL HIM!! He just got through tell ing them how he can't kill himself and he needs someone else to do it, so I just don't see the logic in that.

It is too late in the game to develop a storyline for Richard outside the context of what we already know. Richard was in shackles on the Black Rock, that's how he got to the island...as a human prisoner, who was then given a gift from Jacob and became somewhat immortal. He remained ageless, and....let's be frank....friggin', smokin' hot! (Yeah...I would tap that any day of the week.

I wondered about that, too. Plus, didn't the mugger actually try to shoot Michael and the gun jammed? That's more than not being able to kill yourself. Tom told Michael that he couldn't die (by any means) until the Island was through with him, right? Then, it was Christian[MIB?] who finally told Michael his work was done and allowed him to be blown up on the freighter.

- - - - - -

I know Richard is (a) freaked out by the death of Jacob and MIB run amok, and (b) he's seen it all (including time-jumping Locke) . . . BUT he told Sun that he "watched them all die" back in 1977. So why isn't Richard surprised to see Jack and Hurley alive and well in 2007?